Effective Research Publishing: Open Research & Open Access: Financial Support - Gold OA (UKRI Funded Research)

Open Access Support 2023/2024

UKRI & Innovate UK Funded Research - Open Access Block Grant

What does it cover?

UKRI articles and conference proceedings submitted after 1 April 2022: all peer reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers published in proceedings with an ISSN or platform are within scope.

UKRI includes AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC and Innovate UK.

Articles and conference proceedings:

• must be made open access immediately upon publication with no embargo.  
• must be published with a Creative Commons CC-BY attribution licence. An exception for CC-BY-ND no derivatives will be possible upon application and approval. Complete the UKRI No derivatives licence exception form (10 day UKRI service level response).
• biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding are required to be archived in Europe PubMed Central, in accordance with MRC’s Additional Terms and Conditions and BBSRC’s Safeguarding Good Research Policy
• must include a data access statement even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. Further information is available from the research data support guide.

How do I comply with the funder's open access policy?

Make your article immediately open access via a journal/publishing platform (Gold) or use a repository for self-archiving (Green).

UKRI Compliance Route 1 (gold) 
a. Publish in a fully open access journal or platform

We can pay article processing charges (APCs) in open access journals. UKRI is providing an Open Access Block Grant to support implementation of this policy.

• Use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to find Open Access journals in your discipline. Some open access platforms like PLOS are included in our Library's Publisher OA Deals & Agreements portfolio and are available at no cost to Swansea University corresponding authors. 

Compliance Route 1 (gold)
b. Publish in a subscription journal covered by a 'Transitional Agreement'

• Publish in a subscription (hybrid) journal that is included in a JISC open access 'read and publish' transitional  agreement for gold open access publication. You can check the publisher list and guidance on the Library's Publisher OA Deals & Agreements webpage. There is no open access cost for the corresponding author.

Compliance Route 1 (gold)
c. Publish in a subscription journal with 'Transformative Journal' status

• Some journals are designated 'transformative journal' status. 
• We can pay an article processing charge (APC) in a transformative journal if it is not covered by one of the 'read and publish' Library transitional agreement publishing deals.
• JISC provide details of the criteria journals must achieve in order to meet this transformative status on their website.
• Check the list of Plan S compliant transformative journals (not exhaustive) or email openaccess@swansea.ac.uk for support in determining if a journal is suitable for financial assistance from the block grant.

Open access publication in hybrid titles outside these agreements will no longer be permitted with payment from the OA block grant.

UKRI Compliance Route 2 (green)
Publish in a subscription journal and self-archive the author accepted manuscript (AAM) in the repository with a CC-BY licence

• At the point of submission include the following rights retention statement in the funding acknowledgments section of the manuscript and include it with an accompanying letter or email. Publishers have been made aware of the rights retention strategy by the funders.

'For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence [where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence may be stated instead] to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.’

• On acceptance, deposit the accepted manuscript (AAM) in the Research Information System (RIS).
• Upon publication the AAM should be released in the repository. The Library Research Support team will ensure that the output meets funder and REF OA requirements. We check the manuscript version, journal and funder policies so that the article is freely available to read with a CC-BY licence.
• No embargo is permitted at first online publication (one month compliance window).

Monographs, book chapters and edited collections are included in the policy from 1 January 2024.
Further information is available from their website.

• Monographs, book chapters and edited collections are to be made open access within 12 months of official publication under a Creative Commons licence.
• Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY licence preferred, but Non-Commercial CC-BY-NC (longform) and No-Derivatives CC-BY-ND (research articles) licenses are permitted.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Organisations are expected to ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion is considered and supported when allocating funds from the open access block grant.

JISC provide details of the criteria journals must achieve in order to meet this status. You can also find a definition of a transformative journal on the Plan S website. 

To decide if your chosen journal is a transformative journal you can check the list of cOAlition Plan S transformative journals or use the Plan S Journal Checker tool. 

Wellcome and Horizon Europe use the Plan S definition for transformative journals.

       "A Transformative Journal is a subscription/hybrid journal that is committed to transitioning to a fully OA journal. In addition, it must:

• gradually increase the share of OA content and
• offset subscription income from payments for publishing services (to avoid double payments).
• A Transformative Journal will need to demonstrate an annual increase in the proportion of OA research content of at least 5% points in absolute terms, and at least 15% in relative terms, year-on-year.
• A Transformative Journal must clearly and publicly announce on the journal website its commitment to transition to full OA and agree to transition to full Open Access as soon as possible and in any event no later than when 75% of its research content is published Open Access. The publisher must also acknowledge that financial support from cOAlition S funders will end at the latest by 31 December 2024".

UKRI apply the JISC transformative journal requirement definition for subscription and hybrid journals.

UKRI require a compliant green open access route to be available in a transformative journal. This means that you are able to deposit the author accepted manuscript with a Creative Commons CC-BY licence and release it upon publication with no embargo (rights retention).

For a journal that meets the UKRI transformative journal definition you can follow the green route and add the accepted manuscript to RIS with a CC-BY licence and no embargo, or you can use the gold open access route.

Contact Open Access Support